More Than Meets The Eye
by Arcana Major
Summary: Claudia had a feeling that being too nice would come back and bite her in the ass one day.


**Title:**More Than Meets The Eye

**Summary:**Claudia had a feeling that being too nice would come back and bite her in the ass one day.

**Disclaimer:**I own none of the characters of '_Warehouse__13_' or '_Transformers_'. The rights belong to Syfy & Hasbro. I do not use them for any means of fiscal gain.

"What have I told you about messing around with Artefacts?" Artie yelled irately, as he batted away another slashing attack from what used to be his fridge, with the chair in his hands.

"Well _someone_neglected to mention that it could make anything electronic go all Skynet on us!" Claudia yelled back as best she could. Clawing at the cable that an old rotary telephone had coiled around her throat.

She scrabbled at the tools in her belt until finally her hand came to rest on a parcel cutter.

Perfect.

Her vision was beginning to gray as she tried to work the blade under the cable that was slowly strangling her. With a final surge of effort, the cable broke with a snap.

Gasping, she gripped her knees for support as air once again came rushing into her lungs.

There was a tortured metal shriek behind her

"Oh no you don't." She ground out, as the telephone advanced on her spinning it's dial in a menacing fashion.

She pulled a seemingly innocuous snow-globe from her belt, pointed it at the machine advancing on her and shook it furiously. A flurry of snow burst forth with the intensity of a hurricane.

The transmogrified phone let out an anguished screech as ice began to form all over it's chassis. It tried to crawl toward her, lethargically, as its joints froze.

With a last howl of icy wind the torrent finally subsided as the mechanised monstrosity ground to a halt. Grabbing box of heavy books from the desk beside her, she hefted it high above the unconventional ice sculpture and let it drop; shattering it into hundreds of icy pieces.

She sank to her haunches, as she released a sigh of relief.

Her reverie was shattered just as quickly by a strained shout from the other side of the office.

"Claudia!"

The chair in Artie's hands had been reduced to so many matches, bar the single leg that remained. This he waved ineffectually at the advancing refrigerator; what had once been it's ice tray starting to crackle ominously.

"My bag!" Artie yelled as he dived out of the way of a lump of ice, the size of a small melon that had been launched at his head with inhuman velocity.

Grabbing the large black leather bag from where it was stowed underneath Artie's desk, Claudia proceeded to upend it all over the floor.

Rooting desperately through the surprisingly large quantity of things that was spread across the office floor, she shouted. "What am I looking for?"

"The pocket watch!"

"Watch, watch, watch, watch..." she muttered under her breath as scrabbled around on the floor; tossing a half-finished rubix cube to one side.

"Ah ha, gotcha."

Running her fingers around the rim she found that catch, with a soft click, it opened.

There was a pause.

A rush of crackling blue energy erupted forth, sweeping across the room. The machines reacted violently. Shaking and twitching spasmodically, much like a human would react after a nest of fire ants was introduced to their underwear.

After a few seconds the energy cascaded back into the watch, which snapped shut.

Claudia frantically looked at the machines. They had gone dark, all appendages hanging loosely by their sides, a faint haze of smoke rising slowly from their remains. Whatever spark that had previously animated them, departed.

Artie dropped the remains of the ex-chair with a sigh of frustration. "What is our first rule?"

"Don't play with the artefacts?"

"DON'T. PLAY. WITH. THE. ARTEFACTS." Artie yelled, punctuating each word by jabbing a finger at Claudia's chest. Before turning away to glare at the ruins of his office.

"So who's is the watch?" Claudia asked, trying to divert Artie's ire.

"Thomas Edison. He always was a jealous man; did all he could to stonewall Tesla's attempts to proliferate his technology over here. You wouldn't believe the lengths Mrs. Frederick had to go to in order to get them both in a room together to work on the Warehouse."

There was a pause. Before he turned to face her again.

"Where's the artefact now? At least tell me you neutralised it."

"Of course" Claudia snorted indignantly. Brandishing a silver bag at him, showing the assorted shards of silver metal inside.

Artie was still furious that something this powerful had escaped the Regent's notice and worse had been held by a gun-happy covert division of the CIA for god only knows how long. Heads were going to be rolling in Washington when Mrs. Frederic got there. Artie was almost disappointed he wouldn't get to witness it.

Thankfully, Myka and Pete had managed to spirit the remains of the strange metallic cuboid. The chaos running rife throughout Mission City in the aftermath of the attack allowing them to get in and out unnoticed.

There was a thud against the door, that lead out to the balcony overlooking the Warehouse proper, that jarred him from his thoughts. Sharing a glance with Claudia they began to advance cautiously towards the door, her brandishing the watch as the thudding continued.

Slowly he reached for the handle, before wrenching the door open.

Outside, that old vacuum cleaner that swore had been there since the fifties and had been meaning to finally throw out, backed away hurriedly. Emitting a noise the closest to a whimper that he had ever heard a machine produced.

"Claudia, open the watch."

The vacuum cleaner appeared to be shivering, it's bolts and screws creaking in their casings.

"Claudia?" He said insistently.

He looked back to see her a wearing a stricken expression, the watch lowered. "It's not attacked us yet."

"And?"

"Well, it's just the others went crazy the minute they saw us. And this one," She gestured at the vacuum. "Makes Scooby Doo look like the president of the Bravery Society of America."

"It could be trying to trick us."

"What's it going to do? Shiver us to death?"

He stared at her as a pleading expression appeared on her face. Finally, he said. "Fine." With a put upon a sigh.

"Thank you, Artie" She said with a smile, advancing on him with her arms open.

"But," Pointing at her forcefully, bringing the incoming hug to a screeching halt. "The instant it goes wrong. You take care of it".

With that he turned and walked into the remains of his office, leaving Claudia alone with her new mechanical ward.

There was a bump against her foot, she looked down and she swore the damn thing was nuzzling her leg. Now if only she could convince it to somehow clean up the damage to Artie's office.


End file.
